


all that's left

by QuoteMyFoot



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Gen, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Robin!Laurent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 18:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20313862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: The world is being eroded, bit by bit. To find the strength to carry on, Laurent clings harder to his dream.Written for FE Gen Week, Day 2: flowers/dream.





	all that's left

It is an almost amusing irony, that the child of Robin's who is the least like him is the one who is looked at with suspicion, whilst the child who wishes to follow in his footsteps is doted on and sheltered.

Laurent peers at himself in the mirror, wondering if there is something that makes him look… wrong. But every time, he can only see his mother's features, tempered solely by the colour of Father's hair.

He concludes that there must be something adverse in his behaviour which made the adults see Father—see Robin—see the betrayer—in him. After careful analysis, he narrows it down to his method of providing assistance. Morgan is an open and lively child who can talk to anyone; she happily throws her strategies into the ring for consideration, often accompanied by amateurish stick drawings which belie the cleverness within.

Laurent does not know how to be friendly like Morgan. He only knows how to calculate the rate of consumption for their supplies, taking into account loss due to spoilage and theft, in order to limit their need for dangerous supply runs. He only knows how to experiment with better preservatives so that they can store more foods and for longer, following his mother's lead even after her death. He only knows how to make new weapons against the Risen, ones which do not put more lives at risk—traps that would detonate when stepped on, channelling long range magic spells into materials that could be used by anyone.

Of course, not all of his experiments were successful – he never managed to perfect those mage-less magic spells. But he did not think his efforts were _detrimental. _

If he had simply stopped and withdrawn, perhaps the suspicion would have ceased. If he had quietly played a role as a battle mage, maybe he would not have been thought of so often as 'the betrayer's son'.

But Laurent can't do that. It hurt too much to even _try._

Laurent doesn't have many memories of his father, which haunts him when he cannot identify what he is doing wrong, but what he remembers is Father cursing himself for every life lost. Even one was too much for him—he needed to pull everyone through, or he had failed. The last memory Laurent has of his father was him retreating to his study as Laurent was to go to bed, the candle still brightly burning and a spare already readied, documents strewn over his desk. It had been clear even to a young child that Father intended to work through the night.

No one speaks of what Robin did. Laurent wonders if the betrayal is not so much a thing the man did _directly_, but simply that he failed in the worst way possible—he let people die. He failed everyone, and he failed the Exalt most of all by allowing the world to come to ruin.

Maybe that's what the others saw in Laurent—a failure to live up to promises.

Still, Laurent remembered how hard his father worked to keep everyone safe, and he can't stop. He remembered Mother, working herself into the grave to find new ways of keeping everyone alive. He remembered Morgan throwing herself into her books, desperately hoping to find wisdom in them, as the circle she considered family shrank and shrank.

Laurent has nightmares of them all dying and laying the blame at his feet. _Why did you never learn to fight better? Why did you not apply yourself more? Why couldn't you protect me? _

Laurent holds all their dreams in his hands, made from a sliver of hope and fuelled by desperation, and even when it looks like the end of days is upon them, he cannot let them go.

So he keeps recording and measuring and analysing, making notes and quietly submitting reports that are so faultlessly argued that nobody can refuse to follow his suggestions.

The children, remembering even less of Robin than Laurent, rarely follow their parent's lead in prejudice against Laurent, and he finds more dreams to protect. _To protect my people. To be a hero. To save my race. To be strong enough never to lose to anyone. To be free of the pain of grief._

More impossible dreams, day by day. Laurent carries them close to his heart, alongside his own.

_To fix it—to fix everything. To succeed in ways that Mother and Father and even Morgan could not and free them from endless war and death._

Laurent knows, of course, that some things cannot be fixed.

But he has nothing left to live for but for the determination to _try. _


End file.
